Like Father, Like Son
by brandstifterin
Summary: It was the relationships between father and son. Companion Piece to 'Hanssen/Hemingway' with events in 'Blood Money' and 'If Not For You' mentioned too


**AN: This little plot bunny bit me and wouldn't let me write until I'd (mostly) finished this. A slightly speculative take on Tuesday's (oooh that's today!) upcoming episode from Hanssen's POV. I haven't read any spoilers but it's based on an online comment I read from someone in response to something or other a couple of days ago so it may prove to be utterly wrong. **

**Usual disclaimers apply – I don't own Holby or anything related to it and I'm not making any money from this. Sigh. **

It wasn't until a few days later that Hanssen was able to pinpoint the source of his discomfort. When he considered his findings dispassionately, he isn't able to admit that he is surprised.

Mr. Mooney's death was an unfortunate and quite probably avoidable situation. The man's actual passing didn't move him in the way that other patients in his care have done. He's been a doctor for longer than he hasn't now and he has watched children, siblings, parents, grandparents and spouses die; so, in that respect, Mr. Mooney's passing was unremarkable.

He knows that statement sounds callous in his mind and he'd certainly never dream of saying it out loud or saying anything on the matter. He isn't the cold-hearted man that he has been called many times over the years, quite the opposite – he feels far too much. He was late to develop some kind of emotional masking and now the coping mechanism has gone into overdrive.

Beyond the obvious, it wasn't his current physical discomfort which bothered him.

The physical discomfort _was_ more obvious – the bruising around his wrists from his struggles against the handcuffs, the bruising on his back when he'd slipped and fallen against the workbench in the van; the most obvious of all – the half a dozen stitches in his side from the puncture wound, caused by the nail gun. The way it has taken him nearly two weeks to physically heal, the marks on his body lingering, mocking him every day as he dressed and undressed.

The emotional discomfort from the Mooney saga has taken longer to heal, the effects, whilst not as visible as the physical marks he bore, still remain. It was much more than just the attack which has affected him. Mr. Mooney's campaign of intimidation disquieted him but Hanssen had been secure in his belief that nothing more would come of it than emails and phone calls, no matter their threatening content.

He was concerned that Mr. Binns was receiving similar calls but his confidence that the whole situation would blow over did not waver. He remained calm in the days leading up; he remained calm as the situation began to escalate. Annoyed but still calm when he found his car tyres slashed and undeterred, Hanssen went to confront the man.

He is unimpressed at the initial melodramatic display of burning the compensation money; the scenario would be a bold statement to others yet he feels it would have been bolder still if the offer had been rejected. He is less calm once he sees the proximity of the gas cannisters to the flames but manages to call upon his faith in his own abilities to restore order to the maelstrom of emotional chaos.

Within the blink of an eye, the game has changed and Hanssen's composure reserves begin to crack, handcuffed to a workbench and confronted by the thought that his efforts will be in vain, his death inevitable and meaningless. Despite the occurrence over the years and the frequency with which he wished he hadn't been born; he doesn't want to die, not today, not in the back of this van with a grieving and unstable man.

He remembers when his mother died that he wanted to grasp at any lifeline, anything to make it all hurt less. He takes a risk, fearing he has little left to lose, appealing to the man's compassion, trying to make him aware of the long-term consequences of his actions in the way that Hanssen himself did not foresee when he allowed Ms. Campbell her scheme.

By accepting the compensation money, Mr. Mooney's son's verbal silence has been bought, however, Hanssen knows his own tongue remains free. He issues the public apology to buy the man's physical silence, a promise of no further action.

Hanssen remained calm as he stitched himself back together, willing each pass of the needle to repair more than just his torso. He managed to leave the hospital that day without talking to anyone, pretending he hadn't heard Elliot call to him as he got into his car.

When he went to bed that night, he half expected to be thrown back into the van, attempting to reason to the madness of grief. Instead, he spent the night analysing and categorising each event, removing its power in his mind. As inconvenient as a night of no sleep was, it wasn't the first time and he is able to appreciate the long term benefits. There were no nightmares or mild claustrophobia to follow him and the anticipated emotional fall out from his attack did not prove to be his undoing.

In the end,the answer to what really bothered Hanssen struck him suddenly, as he sat in his office, a solitary light on as he worked on some of the never-ending paperwork into the night, the night before Mr. Levy was due to marry Nurse Williams. It was the relationship between Mr. Mooney and his son.

Hanssen had overlooked its significance in the build up and aftermath of the whole debacle.

He failed. He had failed to comprehend the possibility that people had relationships like that with their fathers or with their sons. Relationships which were so meaningful to both parties that it was enough to drive the surviving party to seek retribution for the accelerated passing of the other.

The whole concept is alien to him; his mind cannot see how revenge and possibly killing the man officially responsible for his father's death seems like the most appropriate course of action. His relationship with his own father fell apart so badly that as far as anyone is concerned, including himself, the man died when he was sixteen.

Not long after Penny Valentine had died, Hanssen had spoken to her brother, Oliver Valentine in his office, clearing him to return to work; Hanssen had told him that his father's 'death' had resulted in the only academic fail of his life to date.

He'd spun the story and twisted the truth but with enough obfuscation that if he ever did refer to it, people invariably drew an incorrect conclusion which Hanssen had no inclination to correct. After thirty plus years of the same story it has become an accepted version of events in his own mind.

He had read about his father's latest 'breakthrough' in the paper over breakfast, on the morning of an algebra exam. He'd almost been sick as he realised the implications of what his father had done and stunned that nobody else seemed to care.

"It remains, to this day, the only blot on my academic record." He had not been allowed to resit the exam – his frustrated explanations falling on the deaf and uninterested ears of his maths teacher. Despite that, Hanssen had gone on to become a doctor, a consultant, a Director of Surgery and a hospital CEO.

He only returned to Sweden once between the ages of sixteen and twenty four, at his uncle's behest to attend his aunt's (his father's sister) funeral. He had maintained his promise to himself and avoided his father, spending a week with his uncle before returning to England to finish his final year of Medical School.

He doesn't often think of his own father, but when he does, it's as some kind of moral marker; vindication and justification for Henrik's own actions and beliefs. Hanssen doesn't even know if his father is still alive and nor does he care. He is so used to this way of being that he cannot envisage any other possibility.

Hanssen had wanted no association or reminder of his father in his life, so he began, from that morning, at the age of sixteen, to erase anything to mark him as his father's son or even as Swedish at all. The most time consuming effort was the creation and adoption of an English accent; determined to become more English than the English. Admittedly it did falter somewhat when he spent time speaking Swedish, his intonation and cadence betraying his roots.

However, every time someone, a patient or a colleague mistook him for an Englishman, Hanssen recorded another small victory. He rarely offered his first name to others – Henrik immediately marking him out as Scandinavian – it made people invariably want to know more about him. Dr. (and later Mr.) Hanssen reminded people of the professional distance and he avoided many personal inquiries that way.

When Sahira's father died of a heart attack the best part of ten years ago, she turned to him to comfort her to his surprise and unease. She would not hear of his obvious unsuitability for the post without proof, he'd taught her too well it seemed and so he haltingly attempted to offer what stability he could. Almost everyone, including her husband, seems to have assumed over the years that they were either lovers or were teetering on the edge of some wild affair.

He has deliberately tried not to think too much about it. For all his observational prowess, Hanssen didn't know or understand the light in which Sahira sees him and what she saw in him that was worth bothering with. If circumstances and life hadn't played out the way they had, Hanssen concedes that in all likelihood they may well have become lovers.

As it is, he does love her, in his own crippled way. The only way he was ever able to demonstrate his regard for her is professionally – offering her jobs and opportunities. For all his efforts, it's been six months since he last heard from her.

He left her because he loved her. He knew it was inevitable that he would leave her, he neither deserved nor was capable of maintaining any kind of relationship with anyone and she needed so much more; someone who wasn't so broken and irreparable.

She followed him though, four times. The first three times were of her own volition to his professional satisfaction and personal confusion. He asked her to come to Holby and within ten days she was there, getting under Jac Naylor's skin on Darwin. This is the first time that she has left him and back in April he understood a measure of his own actions. A taste of his own medicine.

He pinches the bridge of his nose out of habit, trying to focus his mind and ignore emotional distractions. The realisation about Mr. Mooney and his son threw him for a loop but he didn't fully appreciate why until much later. He can see now that his subsequent actions were that of a man rattled. He'd heard Mr. Griffin's comment to one of the nurses as he glided away from the nurses' station on Keller to meet Ms. Campbell but ignored it, its accuracy stinging as it left its invisible mark.

When he gets the phone call in the middle of a discussion with Serena Campbell, Hanssen doesn't recognise the number on his display. He is glad for the interruption and brief respite it grants him for Serena's attitude of mock concern. _His_ best interests indeed.

He regrets answering the call within seconds, the irony of his previous thoughts mocking him. He just about hears the spoken words over the rushing sound in his ears. It takes him a moment to realise that he has been asked a question and he numbly responds that he understands and for reasons that escape him, he adds that he will travel as soon as he can.

If he thought that previous events had him rattled, this call has crumbled the foundations upon which he has rebuilt his life and he does not know what to do. He dimly hears Ms. Campbell ask whether everything is ok and his silent answer remains the same: I don't know.


End file.
